


Sunshine in the Shady Place

by bloodfever



Series: Ephemeral [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Kidfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-03-10 07:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3282494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodfever/pseuds/bloodfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s the great thing about energy. It changes form, but it never actually goes away. So he is everywhere.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine in the Shady Place

Daddy, today was family day in my class, and all the other kids have two parents. Why do I only have one?

Combeferre looks up from his book and is immediately caught in the eyes of his daughter, who has abandoned her crayons and is clearly waiting for an answer.

"We’ve talked about this before. You know there are all kinds of families, a family doesn’t have to look any particular way to be happy." She nods, that indulgent tell-me-something-I-don’t-know nod she picked up frighteningly young.

"But that’s not what you are asking, is it?" She simply shakes her head. Combeferre motions for her to join him on the couch, and pulls her close.

"You had two daddies, once." He said softly. He was struck, once more on an infinitely long list of occasions, by how unfair it was that they had to have this conversation at all.

He understood her confusion, rationally, he had put away all the photographs, pulled away from his friends. Not completely, just enough to dull the constant reminders, just enough to try to stop his heart breaking slowly, like a fractal, cracks running in all directions, patterns repeating endlessly. She was so young when it happened, she wouldn’t remember Courfeyrac at all.

"His name was Julian. I loved him very much and he adored you. There was an accident, and he died." The details were unimportant, she might ask later. She would probably ask later, when she was older, maybe he would be able to talk about it then. Maybe he would be ready.

She frowned, and it was Courfeyrac’s frown, Courfeyrac’s eyes, Courfeyrac’s curls, and Combeferre’s heart is so full, and so bruised. “He died? Where is he now?”

He smiled to himself. “That’s the great thing about energy. It changes form, but it never actually goes away. So he is everywhere.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief. She was just opening her mouth to ask another question when Combeferre jumped in. “The sun is out, how about we go play in the yard?”

They wandered into the little yard behind the house, sunlight filtering softly through the branches of the neighbour’s old apple tree. There was a light breeze, some of their flowers in bloom, and a little girl wandering around the garden, talking to the bees.

Combeferre sat on the porch, feeling the day’s last rays of sunshine kiss his cheek, and thought to himself ‘Hello, Courf.’

**Author's Note:**

> Taken from a prompt which started "Angsty Courferre headcanon". I can't be held responsible for what happened next. 
> 
> Title from Edmund Spenser's Uda and the Lion.


End file.
